little soldier
by Mein Liebling
Summary: His world went from black and white to bursting with colours. He had his own little story, his own little dull, boring world, that was broken and put together like a puzzle again, and again, and again...


"_**As the night closes in I lay in my bed**_

_**Since you went away it's been driving me mad**_

_**Stand in my room I can't see the light**_

_**I wish you were here I'm lonely at night**_

_**I'm caught in a nightmare**_

_**Alone in the night."**_

-_Nightmare, Saxon_

* * *

Scorpius was thrashing wildly.

Blankets were twisted in knots around his form, sweat stains forming on his pajamas. His eyes were shut tight as if he witnessed something grotesque. His mouth was open in a small shrill scream as he whispered, "No, no!" over and over like a lifeline. He took in no air and instead of his face turning a bright red, it shone sallow and pale, the terror overlaying his natural need of air.

And then, he woke up.

There were no bangs, no shouts of "It's alive!", no sitting up straight and gasping for breath. Instead grey eyes opened quickly, with a hand clenched over his heart, and he took a deep breath that came out in small shutters. He clasped another hand over his mouth to keep his breathing as quiet as possible, as tears formed in his eyes.

Scorpius's room was covered in shadows with no moonlight shining through the curtains, but he could just barely see beyond the darkness. The black shapes of his desk and beside table could be seen, and a small shaking hand reached out to turn on the light. The fingers fumbled for a few moments, before the room was flooded with light as he pressed the switch. The boy let out a small sigh of relief as he watched the boogie men that haunted him disappear with the glowing light, and tried to calm down his breathing.

He stayed that way for a while, forcing his breaths even.

_In._

_Out._

The black crept back in like a panther.

* * *

His parents' funeral was a quiet affair.

They didn't have many friends who were still alive or associated them, so it was basically just him, his grandmother, the preacher, and a few others who he didn't recognize. He didn't care. He was numb to the world which was black and white in his grey eyes.

He watched blankly on as they lowered their coffins into the family cemetery on the manor grounds, and barely even noticed the fact that his grandmother had placed a warm hand on his shoulder and was steering him away from the sight as the others filled in the graves with dirt.

Scorpius's eyesight began to blur and tears began to slip down his cheeks, his knees buckling, but he trudged on like a little soldier. Like he was taught to.

(And then the world was a metallic grey.)

* * *

A man came up to him during the funeral after party held in the manor's ballroom, a man he didn't recognize. He was tall with dark skin and hair, and he looked to be around his father's age _(or what he should have been)_.

"Scorpius?"

The blond nodded.

"I'm Blaise Zabini. I was a classmate of your fathers and you're godfather." Blaise gave the young boy a small smile. "I would like to offer my condolences on your parents' passing."

Scorpius looked up at Blaise with bored eyes, which made the man sigh a little bit and look at him with something he now despised- pity. That was what they all said, what they all had for him. Pity. His lip curled into an almost unnoticeable sneer.

"I'm sorry I haven't been here for you, as your godfather. My family owns a business in Italy that I am the boss of, so I needed to be there to help stabilize it."

"…"

Blaise awkwardly patted the boy on the head. It was obvious that the man didn't have many dealings with children, or that he had any of his own.

"But now I'm going to be here more often to help take care of you since I'm your godfather, and since your grandmother can't move as fast as she did, I'll be able to do all the fun stuff with you."

"Hn."

The dark eyed man let out a small smile of victory when he finally got Scorpius to utter something. That was an improvement at least.

"Great! I was thinking that maybe tomorrow we could go to visit the sights in Milan, it's great there this time of year and there's this one place that serves really good food-"

Scorpius blinked as his eyes saw a brief speck of red, before it faded again into grey again.

* * *

The little soldier looked around the manor for Blaise.

He poked his head into rooms, he checked under beds and in cupboards. He peered behind curtains and tapestries and asked the pointy faced portraits whether or not they had seen the Italian.

He trotted along the corridors like a lost pup, sometimes gasping when he thought he saw the man and other times sighing when it turned out to be false.

Scorpius pouted and crossed his arms, before scrunching his nose as he trudged back to the parlor where they had started their game.

"Okay, I give up! Come out Blaise!" he shouted into the walkie-talkie that the man had.

Blaise came into the room about five minutes later, grinning at the scowling boy. "I believe that makes me have forty-nine wins."

Scorpius shook his head. "Shut up, I'll find you sometime."

Blaise shook his head and winked. "I doubt it kiddo."

The Malfoy heir glared. "Don't call me that!"

(And his world flashed a bright yellow during their banter.)

* * *

"Blaise! Hurry _up! _I want to get my wand before the rush gets there!" Scorpius scowled, banging on the bathroom door where his godfather was spending about an hour to style his hair. "You look fine, now _let's go!"_

The Italian sighed as he opened the door a crack and peered out at the impatient boy. "We'll be fine, Scorp, besides the shop doesn't open for another-" he looked down at his watch. "-half hour."

Scorpius sighed. "But Grandmother wants to see us before we leave! Just hurry up." With that, he turned on his heel and left the bathroom, glancing back slightly at the door where his godfather had shaken his head and closed it slightly.

His sight suddenly had blue specks added to it, and he shook his head to clear the sparkles, blinking a few times to get his sight back to normal.

* * *

"Congrats Scorp!" Blaise came up to him after the graduation ceremony and ruffled his hair just like he did on the day of Scorpius's parents' funeral all those years ago.

The seventh year just grinned broadly at his godfather and ignored the petting, instead leaning forward to give him a brief hug before pulling back.

"Thank you," the boy said sincerely, bobbing his head slightly at his guardian.

The older man blinked a few times before smiling brightly; pulling the blond into a big hug that had the graduate scrambling to escape. "Aww, my little baby's all grown up!"

"Shut up Blaise! I'm not a baby anymore!"

"But you admit you once were~!"

"_Everyone was once a baby, idiot!"_

Their laughter could be heard echoing all over, and Scorpius felt like everything was perfect for once, even with his stupid smiling godfather (honestly, how did he get into Slytherin?).

His little world exploded into colours. Red, green, pink, orange, brown, his sight was filled with all of them popping up and down like little fireworks. It was bright, it was colourful, and everything felt _right _for once.

There was no black, or white, or even grey.

Just _colours._

* * *

They were on a plane to Russia.

Scorpius was terrified of flying (what kind of wizard was he? His father was the seeker on the Slytherin Quidditch team, how disappointed he would be), he didn't understand why they had to travel the muggle way when they could just portkey in, but Blaise told him that he had muggle business partners that they were going to meet at the airport, so the eighteen year old quieted down and tightened his grip on the armrests. He didn't trust the plane- a small private one that rattled against the harsh wind that threatened to blow them over- and quietly prayed to Merlin that everything would be alright.

For the most part, everything was fine since they took off. They had a nice hostess that offered to get something to calm down his stomach (he was as white as a ghost, he was told, although personally he thought he already looked like one before he even stepped foot onto the death trap) and the pilots seemed to know what they were doing. Blaise also seemed comfortable flying, so Scorpius was determined to not stand out too much.

The rattling became louder, but nobody else was concerned.

Scorpius kept quiet.

Something grey pushed itself against the window.

It was thick and covered his window in an almost steam-like form, blocking his view.

_Smoke._

It was grey.

* * *

The authorities called it a miracle. They called it luck. They called it everything under the sun. _He shouldn't have lived, _they argued. _Everyone else on the plane died from a crash at that height, but he survived. Why?_

Blaise's funeral had much more people than his parents did.

They came from all over to a nice and simple burial on his old family manor on the Italian countryside. The flowers were blooming, the sky was a light blue, and the world was cheerful except for the mourners dressed in all black, who had their heads bowed as a great man was buried under six feet of grass and dirt.

Scorpius watched with glassy grey eyes.

The not so little soldier was broken again by the same person that pieced him together.

(And his world dimmed to a dull black and white.)

* * *

_1, nightmare saxon, 3, colourful, 13, beyond the darkness_

_Dedicated to my lovely bro who's reading this- yeah you merly snuggle booboo how's it going- and besides that this is for the Quidditch league._

_I don't own harry potter._


End file.
